Ill 




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J TERBERT KAUFMAN is one 

Jl1 of the great thought-moulders of 
our time — indeed I think he is the 
greatest. 

— C. ARTHUR PEARSON 



T IKE notes from a silver bell hit 
£ J with a steel hammer, they rever- 
berate around the world. 

— R. H. DAVIS, Editor of "MUNSEY'S" 



/iVOUJLID rather own Kaufman s 
God- driven pen than Rockefeller's 
and Morgan s combined fortunes. 

— THOMAS W. LAWSON 



rTIHE picturesque vigor, brilliancy 

A and directness of his style may be 

appreciated by those suffering from the 

obsession that literature is the product of 

a dead writer. 

— JOHN O'HARA C0SGRAVE 

Copyright, 1915, by George H. Doran Company 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 



Three Notable Estimates 
of His Power and Place 



THE MAN OF VISION 

By Mary Roberts Rinehart 

AUTHOR OF "KINGS, QUEENS AND PAWNS," "K," ETC., ETC. 

MORE than any writer I know Herbert Kaufman 
seems to me to have the faculty of getting under 
the skin of humanity. No hypocrisy lies too deep 
for him. But while on occasions he uses his pen 
like a weapon, he is also an idealist. I am convinced, for in- 
stance, that his strong and dynamic poems will live after 
much that is merely lyric and beautiful will be forgotten. 

In his editorials it is not only that he puts into words 
things we have always vaguely known but never formu- 
lated. He thinks new thoughts. He sees from a new and 
different angle. Perhaps that one word, "different," is the 
key to his work, as it is to his personality. He is not like 
anyone else. He does not write like anyone else. 

It is strange to think that, vivid American that he is, 
England appreciated him while America was learning to 
know his work. He startled the English out of their literary 
lethargy. He told them new things in a new way. He 
brought truth up out of a quagmire and flung it at them. 

His methods are unique. Words, which are tools to most 
of us, are slaves to him. And he works under that over- 
used word, "inspiration." To most writers comes one hour 
in the day, or one hour in the week, when things "march." 
For want of a better word, we call it inspiration. But I 
think Herbert Kaufman always works that way. The neces- 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

sity brings the impulse. He closes the door and ideas come. 
They come too fast. Many of them are lost. The mere 
overflow would be literary capital to a dozen. 

I know. I know his methods, his vast literary capital, 
which with all his achievements, he is only beginning to 
draw on. I have seen him take an involved situation and 
characterize it in a single word. If I seem over-emphatic 
about his use of words, it is a matter of pure envy. They 
are my tools, as they are his, but they are not my slaves. 

But, after all, writing is not a matter of words, as a 
house is not a matter of bricks. Methods never made a 
writer, nor words. Even Herbert Kaufman's curious ex- 
plosive, fairly artillery-like method of firing the English 
language, would fail if there were not behind it something 
.large and vital. An ideal, for lack of a better word. A 
conviction. A vision. 

Strange mixture of fire and practicality, of fancy and 
fact, dreamer of big dreams, Herbert Kaufman cannot be 
ignored. You may hate him or you may admire him. But 
be sure of one thing. You will never forget him. 



HERBERT KAUFMAN, THE APOSTLE 
OF MAN SCIENCE 

By Edgar Beecher Bronson 

AUTHOR OP "REMINISCENCES OF A RANCHMAN," "THE RED BLOODED," 
"THE VANGUARD," "IN CLOSED TERRITORY," ETC. 

N.O one who knows much of Herbert Kaufman and his 
work can possibly write of him save in such hyper- 
superlatives as to sound silly adulation to any who 
do not know him. 
But that is not the fault of those of us who know him. 
He compels no less of all who know him well. 

However in his short life he has managed to find time to 
burgle the human heart and possess himself of intimate 
familiarity with all its treasures and foibles; to master so 

2 ■ • 

6)CI.A417159 

DEC 131915 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

much of the long gamut of world history; to learn to tread 
as safely the field of mythology as the mazes of the modern 
sciences and the devious paths of modern social, commercial 
and political life; to exhaust the stores of philosophy; to 
develop a style that for lucidity, trip-hammer vigor, fertility 
and virility of epigram has no equal among the writers of 
English of his time, no man will ever learn. 

For a good reason. 

He has done nothing of the sort. 

However the subtlest spiritual agencies can have man- 
aged it must always remain a mystery ; but the only logical 
explanation of Kaufman is that he is the reincarnation, in 
a single human unit, of at least a dozen of the most heavily 
freighted minds of history, come among us pre-charged 
with all the wealth of their knowledge and wisdom. 

Every page he writes is a casket brimming with jewels 
of sane philosophy. 

Perhaps he is a manifestation of Providence. 

Certainly he so appears. 

Come among us when the pulpit, with few exceptions, is 
nigh moribund of intellectual anemia and moral cowardice ; 
when the lecture platform no more echoes the tread of 
mental stalwarts; when editorial pens are far too often 
shackled by publishers' policies; when metropolitans, 
masses and classes alike, have lost capacity to divert or 
mentally occupy themselves, and must needs give all their 
spare hours to one form or another of canned amusement, 
served hot off some manager's griddle by one class or an- 
other of paid public entertainers, the shrewd blade of Her- 
bert Kaufman's intellectual scalpel is boldly exposing the 
individual, social, commercial and political vices and cancers 
that blight our times. 

To be sure, more or less of them have always blighted 
"the time," everybody's "times," from the dawn of history ; 
and precisely so will they continue to blight "the times" of 
remotest posterity — at least, unless and until human hearts 
are purged of envy, and of greed and hatred. 

But all who read and well heed this superbly gifted 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

apostle of optimism, of work, of effort, of tireless, terrific 
effort, of efficiency and self-confidence, of POSSIBILITY, 
cannot fail to find themselves spiritually uplifted and ma- 
terially bettered. 

For from the shoulders of his disciples fall their burdens, 
like a loosened mantle, and obstacles in their paths they 
take gaily, in their stride. 

Christian Science? 

Nothing of the sort. 

Just MAN SCIENCE— the science of being a MAN, 
under all circumstances, of shirking nothing and battling 
cheerfully to the end, battling hardest where the contra 
odds are longest. 

The power of the man, his dynamic, convincing, com- 
pelling power to help those his voice reaches, lies in the 
fact that he sincerely believes, and in his own life practices, 
all that he teaches. 

So now testifies, to the best of his knowledge and belief, 
one who has been privileged to know him intimately for 
many years. 

"RED-BLOODED, MILITANT 
OPTIMISM" 

By Ernest S. Simpson 

IN THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL 

HERBERT KAUFMAN'S editorials have set a new 
mark in journalism. His genius — it is not less than 
genius — needs no hammering or filing or buffing. 
Many of us think such thoughts; some of us, with 
much pains, write them, or at them; a very few may say 
them, minting as they speak new and true ringing coinage 
of speech. To read Kaufman is to hear him. 

These Herbert Kaufman editorials have made him famous 
wherever men of our speech hire or are hired. And they 
have done vastly more than this, have taken the ache out 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

of many and many a toil-tired back and work- weary heart; 
have rooted up the weeds of despair and planted new hope 
in many a field of unprospering endeavor; have scourged 
out unfaith and distrust and summoned back that belief 
in self and self^s fellows without which there is no suc- 
ceeding. 

I do not marvel at all to see them pasted above the 
worker's bench and above the general manager's desk, as 
they may be found in store, and office, and factory. 

They seem to me of the finest and strongest and most 
helpful deliverances that have been penned 

"Since spoken word man's spirit stirred 
Beyond his belly need." 

In them there is a simple philosophy and a true one, else 
they would not have gone home to the hearts of men. You 
may amuse and even please with mere words deftly sorted 
out and cunningly strung together with such trick of color 
and rhythm as to make a kind of prose music, but those 
words must bear a message and say a truth if they are to 
live and breathe and be believed. It is the essence of 
Kaufman's writing that he has a gospel and a creed. Words 
are his willing servants. For him they glow and shine, 
ranging themselves in swift companies and flinging them- 
selves upon the understanding. But the real merit of his 
work is not a thing of form or manner; it is in the vital 
truths he illumines with his many faceted fancy; it is, in 
fine, his philosophy and not the verbal felicity and facility 
in which he garments it. 

Optimism, a sturdy, red-blooded, militant optimism, 
seems to me the master note of Kaufman's philosophy. The 
unconquerable soul he sings, and strength and courage and 
energy. , 

And withal Kaufman's is a philosophy as keen-eyed for 
fraud and sham as it is kindly for whatever honest effort 
is put forth with a man's whole heart and strength; a 
philosophy of liberal and generous tolerance, of charity, 
of fairness, broad, frank and intensely human. 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 



THE DREAMERS 

rpHEY are the architects of greatness. Their vision lies 
within their souls. They never see the mirages of 
Fact, but peer beyond the veils and mists of doubt and 
pierce the walls of unborn Time. 

The World has accoladed them with jeer and sneer and 
jibe, for worlds are made of little men who take but never 
give; who share but never spare; who cheer a grudge and 
grudge a cheer. 

Wherefore, the paths of progress have been sobs of blood 
dropped from their broken hearts. 

Makers of empire, they have fought for bigger things 
than crowns, and higher seats than thrones. Fanfare and 
pageant and the right to ri^e or will to love are not the 
fires which wrought their resolutions into steel. Grief only 
streaks their hairs with silver, but has never grayed their 
hopes. 

They are the Argonauts, the seekers of the priceless 
fleece, — the Truth. 

Through all the ages they have heard the voice of Destiny 
call to them from the unknown vasts. They dare uncharted 
seas, for they are the makers of the charts. With only 
cloth of courage at their masts and with no compass save 
their dreams, they sail away undaunted for the far, blind 
shores. 

Their brains have wrought all human miracles. In lace 
of stone their spires stab the Old World's skies and with 
their golden crosses kiss the sun. 

The belted wheel, the trail of steel, the churning screw, 
6 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

are shuttles in the loom on which they weave their magic 
tapestries. 

A flash out in the night leaps leagues of snarling seas and 
cries to shore for help, which, but for one man's dream, 
would never come. 

Their tunnels plow the river bed and chain island to the 
Motherland. 

Their wings of canvas beat the air and add the highways 
of the eagle to the human paths. 

A God-hewn voice swells from a disc of glue and wells out 
through a throat of brass, caught sweet and whole, to last 
beyond the maker of the song, because a dreamer dreamt. 

What would you have of fancy or of fact if hands were 
all with which men had to build? 

Your homes are set upon the land a dreamer found. The 
pictures on its walls are visions from a dreamer's soul. A 
dreamer's pain wails from your violin. 

They are the chosen few — the Blazers of the Way — who 
never wear Doubt's bandage on their eyes — who starve 
and chill and hurt, but hold to courage and to hope, be- 
cause they know that there is always proof of truth for 
them who try, — that only cowardice and lack of faith can 
keep the seeker from his chosen goal; but if his heart be 
strong and if he dream enough and dream it hard enough, 
he can attain, no matter where men failed before. 

Walls crumble and empires fall. The tidal wave sweeps 
from the sea and tears a fortress from its rocks. The rot- 
ting nations drop from off Time's bough, and only things 
the dreamers make live on. 

They are the Eternal Conquerors; their vassals are the 

years - —From The Efficient Age. 

New York: George H. Doran Company. 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 



"MAGGIE" 

rp HAT'S right — dive on through the crowd and get in 
■*■ front or you won't find a seat. It's six o'clock and the 
shops are out. If you wait for the women to get aboard, 
you'll have to stand up all the way home. There's a vacant 
place! Shoulder past that girl — you're stronger. You did 
it! Now, lean back and have a comfortable half -hour with 
the news. 

Why does she moon at you with such tired eyes? It's 
unfair to make you uncomfortable — mask your face with 
the paper — she can stand as well as you — better. She's 
had more practice — that's all she has done all day long. So 
a little while longer won't make much difference to her. 
If women will insist on going home just at tj^e time men 
leave their offices, they mustn't be querulous if they find 
the cars crowded. 

The old ideas about courtesy and chivalry are getting to 
be moss-grown poppycock. They were well enough in the 
romantic age, but this is the business epoch. 

We haven't time to pause for such foolish notions now- 
adays. Besides, now that women are competing with men, 
they must forego some of the privileges of the sex and not 
hope to be coddled — there's no sex in business. Dollars 
and cents and sentimentality can't be blended. 

Meanwhile Maggie hangs onto the strap and wearily 
shifts her weight from one tired foot to the other. She 
doesn't resent your boorishness — she's growing used to 
it — lots of ideals get nicked when women go to work. 

She left home yesterday morning, three hours earlier 
than your wife arose. It was dark in the room when her 
ninety-nine-cent alarm clock tattooed her out of bed. 

She had to light the gas to find her clothes — the water 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

in the pitcher wore a skin of ice — (they don't build sta- 
tionary wash basins with hot and cold water faucets in 
three-dollar-a-week "boudoirs") . 

All day long (and all days are long in the shops) she 
was standing, stretching, bending, smiling — please don't 
forget the smile — perhaps you noticed it the last time you 
came to her counter. You smiled, too. Hers, however, was 
a different sort — it's one of the requirements — Rule 27 — 
"Be cheerful." 

Yours was more of a social grin — a knowing, engaging, 
subtle, inviting affair. Oh, "they can't tell you anything 
about these shop-girls." 

But it may be worth while to learn something about 
them. And when you do, chances are that you won't smile 
in quite the same way. 

They're women who must make good — good women, or 
they wouldn't be drudging out their lives for a crust and a 
sup and a strip of bed. Just as frail as your women, with 
the same sort of souls and hearts and with the same yearn- 
ing hunger for care and tenderness. Young women grow- 
ing old at the rate of 24-months-a-year — women without 
chances or with lost chances. Some marry — some were 
married — most of them hope to be. 

Usually they're strong. But sometimes the half -starva- 
tion and the half -warmth and the longing for better shelter 
and all the food they'd like to eat and 

But most of them keep on. Keep on playing by the 
rules — harder rules than yours — in a tougher game and 
for smaller stakes. 

Women just as wholesome as your own — often with as 
good blood in their veins. Women who haven't lost any- 
thing except protection. They're paying the fiddler be- 
cause their fathers didn't pay their insurance premiums. 

The grey mists veil the brightest of their days — the 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

menace of to-morrow is always between — a to-morrow whose 
hope fades with their fading and whose approach may only 
be provided against by the hoarded piece of silver wrenched 
out of a ten-dollar bill from which must also come board 
and lodging and carfare and clothes and doctor's bills and 

vacations and 

Why aren't you smiling ? _ From Neighbours _ 

New York: George H. Doran Company. 



WHY ARE YOU WEEPING, SISTER? 

JJ/^HY are you weeping, Sister? 
** Why are you sitting alone? 
I am bent and gray 
And I've lost the way. 
All my to-morrows were yesterday. 
I traded them off for a wanton's pay. 
I bartered my graces for silks and laces 
My heart I sold for a pot of gold — 
Now I'm old. 



Why did you do it, Sister? 
Why did you sell your soul? 
I was foolish and fair and my limbs were rare. 
I longed for life's baubles and did not care. 
When we know not the price to be paid, we dare 
I listened when Vanity lied to me 
And I ate the fruit of The Bitter Tree — 
Now I'm old. 

Why are you lonely, Sister? 
Where have your friends all gone? 
Friends I have none, for I went the road 

10 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

Where women must harvest what men have sowed 
And they never come back when the field is mowed. 
They gave the lee of the cup to me 
But I was blinded and would not see — 
Now I'm old. 



Where are your lovers, Sister? 
Where are your lovers now? 
My lovers were many but all have run. 
I betrayed and deceived them every one 
And they lived to learn what I had done. 
A poisoned draught from my lips they quaffed 
And I who knew it was poisoned, laughed — 
Now I'm old. 



Will they not help you, Sister? 
In the name of your common sin? 
There is no debt, for my lovers bought. 
They paid my price for the things I brought. 
I made the terms so they owe me naught. 
I have no hold, for 'twas I who sold. 
One offered his heart, but mine was cold — 
Now I'm old. 

Where is that lover, Sister? 
He will come when he knows your need. 
I broke his hope and I stained his pride. 
I dragged him down in the undertide. 
Alone and forsaken by me he died. 
The blood that he shed is on my head, 
For all the while I knew that he bled — 
Now I'm old. 



Is there no mercy, Sister, 

For the wanton whose course is spent? 

When a woman is lovely the world will fawn. 

11 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

But not when her beauty and grace are gone, 
When her face is seamed and her limbs are drawn. 
I've had my day and I've had my play. 
In my winter of loneliness I must pay — 
Now I'm old. 



What of the morrow, Sister? 
How shall the morrow be? 
I must feed to the end upon remorse. 
I must falter alone in my self-made course. 
I must stagger alone with my self-made cross. 
For I bartered my graces for silks and laces, 
My heart I sold for a pot of gold — 
Now I'm old. 

— From Poems. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 



THE CLOCK THAT HAD 

NO HANDS 

"VTEWSPAPER advertising is to business what hands 
are to a clock. It is a direct and certain means of 
letting the public know what you are doing. In these days 
of intense and vigilant commercial contest, a dealer who 
does not advertise is like a clock that has no hands. He 
has no way of recording his movements. He can no more 
expect a twentieth century success with nineteenth cen- 
tury methods, than he can wear the same sized shoes as a 
man, which fitted him in his boyhood. 

His father and mother were content with neighborhood 
shops and bobtail cars; nothing better could be had in 

12 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

their day. They were accustomed to seek the merchant 
instead of being sought by him. They dealt "around the 
corner" in one-story shops which depended upon the im- 
mediate friends of the dealer for support. So long as the 
city was made up of such neighborhood units, each with 
a full outfit of butchers, bakers, clothiers, jewelers, furni- 
ture dealers and shoemakers, it was possible for the pro- 
prietors of these little establishments to exist and make a 
profit. 

But as population increased, transit facilities spread, 
sections became specialized, block after block was entirely 
devoted to stores, and mile after mile became solely occu- 
pied by homes. 

The purchaser and the storekeeper grew farther and 
farther apart. It was necessary for the merchant to find 
a substitute for his direct personality, which no longer 
served to draw customers to his door. He had to have a 
bond between the commercial center and the home center. 
Rapid transit eliminated distance but advertising was neces- 
sary to inform people where he was located and what he 
had to sell. It was a natural outgrowth of changed condi- 
tions — the beginning of a new era in trade which no longer 
relied upon personal acquaintance for success. 

Something more wonderful than the fabled philosopher's 
stone came into being, and the beginnings of fortunes 
which would pass the hundred million mark and place 
tradesmen's daughters upon Oriental thrones grew from 
this new force. Within fifty years it has become as vital 
to industry as steam to commerce. 

Advertising is not a luxury nor a debatable policy. It 
has proven its case. Its record is traced in the skylines of 
cities where a hundred towering buildings stand as a les- 

13 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

son of reproach to the men who had the opportunity but 
not the foresight, and furnish a constant inspiration to the 
young merchant at the threshold of his career. 

— From The Clock That Had No Hands. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 



THE LITTLE BROTHERS OF 
DESTRUCTION 

f ITTLE habits destroy great men. Big mistakes sel- 
dom wreck. 

Great cliffs do not menace the mariner, but hidden reefs 
and sunken rocks send many a good ship to the bottom. 

The redwood climbs into the skies, brushing the clouds 
with his century-laden branches, contemptuous of hurri- 
cane and earthquake and fire — defiant of disaster — impreg- 
nable to every force except the gnaw of worm and the bore 
of beetle. 

The Titans that tear fortresses from their seats and 
fling tidal waves across an empire are impotent against the 
masters of the grove. 

But the Little Brothers of Destruction, born to die within 
a puny hour, relentlessly and doggedly persisting in their 
mission, unreckoning of time, pursue without pause the 
task that is never abated until the lord of the forest, eaten 
to the core, totters and crashes under his own weight. 

No man is stronger than his petty weaknesses. No career 
is invulnerable. 

Carelessness, recklessness and self-complacency expose the 
heel of every Achilles. 

14 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

The monsters of mythology and romance were just big 
bluffs; they brought no peril to humanity — they adver- 
tised themselves too prominently. 

The enemy, marching with blare of trumpet and beat of 
drum, stands no show because he makes too much show. 
It's the ambuscaded regiment, the troop in the trenches, 
that play havoc. 

All the dragons and salamanders in legend weren't one 
whit as terrible as the germs and microbes and bacilli 
rioting through the rotten blood of one infected vagrant. 

A solitary rat, laden with the couriers of plague, frowns 
more darkly upon civilization than a thousand herds of 
rampageous, blatant, bellowing dinosaurs. 

We can deal with anything that we can manhandle. 

Glaring follies are only temporarily distressing. The 
instant they become sufficiently prominent to attract atten- 
tion they invite timely criticism. 

It's the little things that you hide — the mean, tricky, 
selfish, secret, soul-biting, heart-eating, brain-draining 
microbe habits — which you alone know, and which none 
but you can deal with — that drag you down in your prime 
and your pride. 

Self-control is the key to the cure. Anybody can with- 
stand a colossal temptation. 

True mastery lies in the battle with ridiculous and in- 
finitesimal indulgences — -none important by itself, but, like 
coral insects, pitilessly, unflaggingly combining their harm- 
ful mites, until they erect a reef within your nature upon 
which opportunity and hope founder and are forever lost. 

— From Neighbours. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 

15 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 



THE SONG OF IMAGINATION 

TTHIS is the song of Imagination: 

■*■ Mine are the wings on which souls soar into the un- 
born years. 

Mine are the sails that speed the ships of fancy across 
the seas of time. 

I am the crucible that transmutes impossibilities into 
achievement. 

I am the loom that weaves the tapestries for history. 

I am the giant crane of the brain. 

I am the lens that magnifies the farthest star and the 
hand that reaches to its height. 

Mine is the eye that pierces mount-sides and sees the 
treasures of the rock. 

I am the herald of things to be — guide to civilization — 
architect of evolution — I strike the soul-spark that warms 
clay to kinship with immortals. 

I am the dream of man-awake. 

All that is mighty on earth and all that is noble in might 
— all that is finest and farthest and fairest my pencil 
sketched. 

I stand upon the desert sands and summon fruitful 
waters from the hills to slake the parching wastes. 

I survey highways in the wilderness and beckon courage 
to the new-found roads. 

I tear the bolts from out the hands of Jove and harness 
them to wheel and lamp. 

I spin a wonder-web of wires o'er the miles, and gift 
the strands with speech. 

I drive my iron horses over mountain peaks. 

I blend the pigments for the painter's brush and orches- 
trate musician's hands. 

I am Revelation — Horizon, Vision, Hope, Faith — the 
Light Eternal. 

I AM THE VOICE OF GOD. 

I whisper, and walls rise into the clouds, and surgeons' 

16 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

knives find foulness in sick flesh and wings of canvas 
breast the winds, and unseen ships hear cries of help 
scream from a leaping spark. 

I sow tomorrow with good seed. 

Without me man is meat. 

Swords have won nothing for the world — great fights 
are fought with thought. 

Twas I who taught the wheel-maker and the tool-shaper 
and the rail-layer and the boat-builder. 

I am the Master in Man. 

I am Opportunity. I stalk in the sunrise. At dusk, 

Time the Sweep brushes away my track, but Tomorrow I 

come to walk anew. _, „. , __. ., 

— From Woman s World. 



IMPOSSIBILITIES ARE THE 
FAILURES OF LAZY MEN 

IMPOSSIBILITIES are merely the half-hearted efforts of 
quitters. The man who won't go through to the finish 
has finished at the start. If he hasn't pluck enough to 
hang on, he must hang back. We can't afford to regulate 
the pace of progress to accommodate the laggard. 

The lazy man has always failed in every spot and in 
everything. He's a weed in the way of a producer. He 
absorbs more than he earns. He checks the growth of 
well-planted endeavor. 

He's a sterile seed. The winds of fortune may drift 
him successively to a dozen rich soils, but no matter where 
he lands, he's useless. 

Even when he does meet opportunity he doesn't know 
it. He can't tell the difference between good luck and a 
case of measles. 

The steady, ready worker never complains. He's too 

17 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

busy trying to better his condition. When a man is doing 
his level best he always finds life on the level. 

When you meet a howler who blames his environment, 
his generation, his fellows, his country, you find a man 
who has failed in himself. Not geography nor time nor 
environment can hold down a fighter. 

The right type of man will raise a grove of fig trees 
in a desert. 

Failure isn't a disease of locality — it's a personal habit. 

Anybody can get a steady living out of steady effort. 
The same clock that ticks off twenty-four hours for one 
man can't cheat his neighbor. The same laws of right 
and wrong, the same privilege to do and dare, are open 
to both. 

All through the continent, old counties are changing 
their aspects. The stockbreeder who wasted fourteen acres 
of prairie upon one steer must hand over that land to a 
newcomer who can make it support fourteen humans and 
the steer. 

Prairie sections which once went begging for buyers at 
a dollar an acre are now bearing enough cotton and cane 
and truck and fruit to raise their value a hundred fold. 

The same soil was there all the while. It was always 
worth a hundred times as much as its selling price, but 
not to the owner who wouldn't find it out. 

The man who looks hard enough will find enough to repay 
him. Only the worker lasts. Carelessness and indiffer- 
ence and neglect are not timbers for the builder. 

There are no free passes over the modern road. For- 
tune has an interstate commerce law of her own — she 
won't deadhead anyone. 

Everybody who ever did anything, anywhere, had to find 

18 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

the grindstone and run himself against it until he devel- 
oped an edge that would cut something. 

Half of greatness is grit. When intelligence is backed 
up by the determination not to back down, the only thing 
under the sun that is impossible is something that can't 

— From Do Something! Be Something! 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 



THE SPENDTHRIFT 

V OUR purse stands on the shelf. Tick-tock, tick-tock, how 
1 it leaks! 

One by one the minutes fly. Hurry, spendthrift, check 
your losses; you can't replace one squandered day. 

Invest your hours, invest your powers while you have 
a balance. 

Stop doubting. Ambition must have free play ; she can't 
strike with shackled arms. 

Opportunity is calling, the world is thinking in Titanic 
phrases, mighty adventures are under way, great expedi- 
tions are setting forth into the unknown. How much longer 
will you stand aside? Where is your fighting blood, where 
your courage, where your pride? 

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock; your chance is slipping 
by! Make speed, or you'll be left behind. 

You're competent and healthy and sane, you have all your 
limbs and faculties. What more do you want? 

Everything that has been wrought on the face of this 
earth was accomplished with exactly the same outfit that 
Nature gave you. 

Use your gifts — don't give in. You are of the same breed 

19 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

as the men who now control your comings and goings, who 
dictate at what and when, where and how, you shall labor. 

Their success was not a birthright — it came out of effort, 
out of action, out of dauntless persistence. 

You're to blame for your failures. Weakness can't per- 
sist where it isn't acknowledged. 

You can will yourself into anything. The only actual 
cripples are cowards. 

Own up and put the blame where it belongs, — on your 
own head. 

You've welched, you've been a bad player in the Big 
Game, you've accepted knock-downs for knock-outs, you've 
exaggerated bruises into mortal wounds. 

You want the best things of life without giving the best 
of yourself in payment; you've haggled over the price of 
existence. 

Your present is uncertain because you've looked for cer- 
tainties in the past. 

TAKE A RISK OR TAKE THE COUNT ! 

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock; the older you 
grow, the heavier your losses. Your purse is thinning. 
Act! 

You can't be checked if you mean to win. The Dark 
Ages are gone, and with them went all barriers. 

Five hundred years ago, society with its injustice and in- 
tolerance might have held you under foot, but to-day you're 
king of your own domain, lord and master of your welfare. 

Have you no pride, have you no faith? 

Look around you. Wherever your eye turns some man 
with no better start than yours, with no greater education 
and no sounder constitution, is shaming you because he 
didn't quit — because he considered himself equal to his 

20 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

opportunities, and, despite every delay and disappointment, 
kept the fires of Hope flaring. 

Have you ever really thought, have you ever really fought, 
have you ever made one thorough attempt to do better, 
have you once given yourself a fair, full show? 

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock — time is sweep- 
ing on! _ m , „_ . 

— From The Efficient Age. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 



NOT AN 0,DE TO SPRING 

HPHE new year found the maple in despair — a gaunt, 
creaking, rheumatic wreck, stripped to its battered 
limbs. 

Then Spring whispered courage into the desolate heart 
— again it felt the throb of youth and forgotten ambitions 
sped from branch to branch, harking them back to duty, 
until every twig gave answer to the call. 

The winter barrens, too, are gone, and in their stead are 
magic tapestries in green and rose and golden yellow. 

Here, a clump of violets shyly lifts above the grasses. 
There, a gay company of daisies races up the hillside, and 
yonder, a crimson clover nods her dainty head to a forag- 
ing bumble-bee. 

The vagrant winds bring with them the fragrance of 
distant orchards, the pastures are lush and the roadside 
is hedging with mullein and sumac and berries in flower. 

(For further details, refer to the works of Algernon 
Charles Swinburne, or any seedsman's catalogue.) 

No, this isn't a song to spring; on the contrary, it's 
a hard-hitting, prosaic talk to quitters — to men who've 

21 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

stopped believing in themselves, and therefore, possibly, 
to you. 

All nature is trying to make you understand that you 
can begin again — trying to tell you that few losses are so 
utter but that they can be replaced- — trying to teach you 
that failures are fertilizers for growth. 

The sapling does not bear fruit at the first try, but, with 
hope undiminished, it strives and strives until it fulfils 
its mission. 

Are you inferior to a chestnut ? Will you let a crab-apple 
cover you with shame? 

Society does not demand that you win immediately, but 
we do insist that you maintain faith so long as you have 
the strength with which to attempt. 

There is no hour so splendid as that which proves that 
you can surmount defeat. 

Hardship is hurtful merely to cowards. It can't break a 
real man's back — it only stiffens his backbone. 

Fortune frowns on weaklings. But if you resist and per- 
sist, if you can "come back" with undiminished determina- 
tion. Few hopes are vain. 

You are more competent with your misfortunes behind 
you than those whose storms and setbacks are yet before 
them. 

If your former place is filled, don't worry — there's ample 
room somewhere else. 

At the outset of their careers, most of the leading men 
in history had to be kicked out of their complacency and 
punished for contentment with third-class uncertainties. 

Put doubt aside — aim high — and take a first-rate dare. 

Even if you miss the mark, you can't fall farther than 
the bottom and you're there already. 

22 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

Spring is not only a season — but also an attitude of mind 
— it's always the right moment to blossom out anew. 

— From Neighbours. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 



THE WAITING WOMAN 

A WOMAN is waiting for you, my lad — 
Ride past! 
Her cheeks are soft and her mouth is glad — 

Ride fast! 
For the flash of her glance is the light of bane, 
And the touch of her lips is the key to pain, 
And she calls to the wise man — all in vain ! 
But youth is strong and will find no wrong 
In the lilting lure of her ancient song. 
And the thing that's art, and the thing that's heart 
Only the knowing can tell apart ; 
And the price of the knowledge is black with stain, 
And the seed of the wisdom, bad. 

She would barter her love for your own, my lad — 

Ride past! 
But your love is good and her love is bad — 

Ride fast! 
She offers the fruit of the bitter tree, 
Her kiss is the promise of misery, 
Of death and of woe; let her be! let her be! 
Youth is bold and of eager mold, 
And brass in the ken of youth is gold, 
And the acid of grief is the only test 
For the tawdry tinsel within her breast— 
Which only the eyes of the wise can see — 
And the eyes of the wise are sad! 

— From Poems. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 

23 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

FAST HORSES AND POOR 
MEN'S BARNS 

"V7" OU can't hold a fast horse in a poor man's barn ; he'll find 
his right place when he strikes his real pace. 

You can't dam rising waters and you can't down rising 
men. Ability, by the law of gravity, seeks its proper level. 

No matter where a good man stands, the rest of human- 
ity knows how he stands. 

Competition has the eye of Asmodeus. Your rival usually 
knows everything that goes on behind your walls; he can't 
win his own game unless he watches yours. 

You can't becloud your stars; ultimately they'll shine 
through obscurity and display their brilliance. 

The world's master tenor began his career in a village 
opera troupe. 

The "cracks" of the Big Leagues pitched their curves 
from country diamonds across metropolitan plates and 
batted home-runs over hamlet fences to cities a thousand 
miles away. 

The Mississippi began business in the blind heart of a 
mountain range, but managed to work its way clear through 
the continent. 

It isn't where a man starts but what a man starts that 
gives him status. 

No matter how thick the throng may be, the head of the 
giant towers above his inferiors. The less conspicuous his 
surroundings the more prominent he becomes. 

You can't conceal a bushel in a peck measure; it's bound 
to overflow its narrow confines. 

Superior force can't be restrained. A leader will forge 

24 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

to the front, no matter how much you may seek to hold 
him back. 

Pay the market price of a deserving worker or you'll pay 
double for a competent successor. 

When a valuable aid leaves your ranks and is lined up 
against you, you must not only give battle to his native wit, 
but combat as well with the training which you gave him. 

Only a bigoted, blinded ass believes that men will con- 
tinue to work for him at less than they are worth. 

This is the day of national circulations, of single news- 
papers which spread over a dozen states. "Want" pages are 
market places, bill-boards posted with offers to efficient help. 

Progressive commerce is constantly sending its messages 
throughout the whole continent, prospecting in every out- 
of-the-way corner for rich minds. 

Your sole hold on any man's services is his confidence in 
your fairness. 

The moment he finds that you have taken advantage of 
his fidelity, he throws off all bonds of loyalty. 

From that instant all his thoughts are centered on his 
own advancement. If he can better himself, he will leave 
you in the lurch overnight, no matter how sorely you may 
require his services. 

If you don't give him a square deal he won't give you a 
fair field. —From The Efficient Age. 

New York: George H. Doran Company. 



THE LIVING DEAD 

"DATTLES have you and I to fight and we fight with the 

-^ souls of men. 

We rise and fall then we heed the call, 

25 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

And we rise and fall again, 

We fight for the right and the sake of the fight, 

And we fight at the bid of hate. 

We stab with wit and we fend with grit, 

But we play the game as the rules are writ, 

With never a damn for Fate. 

And we sometimes gain and we sometimes lose, but it isn't 

upon the sleeve, 
For we never show that we feel the blow, 
And we smile while we hurt and grieve, 
When our heart-chords strain and we writhe with pain 
And our souls are a livid moan, 
We hold it in with a masking grin, 
And the world can't tell that we didn't win, 
And the world can't hear the groan. 

We buy at a price that the fool can't count and the coward's 

afraid to pay, 

And the most we gain is the blind, black pain, 

But we keep right in the fray. 

We can take the knife 'till it takes our life 

And can live in the empty shell. 

We are dead and gone but we battle on, 

For only we trow of the place that's torn, 

And only we know of the Hell. _ _ 

— From Poems. 

New York: George H. Doran Company. 



DO IT 

Y\0 It! Keep on and leap on — get through it! 

U Don't stop in the road or hop like a toad 

From this side to that, or fly like a bat 

With your head upside down till your brain rattles 'round; 

Of course — there are boulders! 

But you have strong shoulders — 

A tug and a stride, though, will move them aside — so! 

Deep ruts? To be sure. 

26 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

Toward the end, though, they're fewer. 

The path over there may appear more fair, 

But you haven't time to find out if it's prime, 

And the road to the right winds too far out of sight. 

It may prove much slicker and smoother and quicker, 

But you know your way's right, for the goal is in sight. 

So what if it's rough — isn't sureness enough? 

Jot this down where 'twill stay, for you need it all day. 

What's got without effort is worth what it cost. 

The easily gained things are easily lost. 

When a road is worn flat you can bet your best hat 

That it leads to a place where too many are at. 

When a way is all roughness and gruffness and toughness, 

And brambled and scrambled and wildly o'ergrown — 

You can make up your mind 

There are new things to find, 

That you're getting at something that hasn't been known, 

If you don't go on through it you'll live on to rue it; 

Somebody who isn't a quitter will do it! 

He'll laugh as he rambles his way through the brambles; 

He'll know that the big things of life must be won. 

He won't mind a stumble (it takes time to grumble) ; 

He won't care a hang if he does bark his shin. 

He won't be defeated because he's o'er heated, 

He'll leap on and keep on until he gets in. 



MARY'S EYES 

WHERE did Mary get her eyes? 
Shall I tell you? From the skies. 
Once a fairy princess skimming 
Through the air when day was dimming, 
Saw a flash of violet gleaming, 
Like a sapphire, priceless, seeming. , 
Quick she flew, 
And caught its hue, 
In a sparkling cup of dew. 

Then she made the eyes of you. — From Poems. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 

27 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 
KAUFMANISMS 

TT7HEN every other ability fails you try reliability. 

Don't judge a man by the noise he makes — the 
poorest machinery creaks the loudest. 

Some men would get in oftener if they'd get out sooner. 

The world is filled with 22-calibre men trying to explode 
in 42-centimeter jobs. 

Impossibilities are merely the half-hearted efforts of 
quitters. 

Most roosters wear their crows too long and their spurs 
too short. 

Catch the gold fever and mine your mind. 

You can't keep a fast horse in a poor man's barn. He'll 
find his right place when he shows his real pace. 

Failure is not a disgrace if it isn't a habit. 

Bury the past and don't mark it with a monument. 

Measure your work with a speedometer, not a clock. 

A man who remembers his last employer's secrets will 
betray yours. 

28 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

Comments of Leading Reviewers Upon 
NEIGHBOURS 

"Mr. Kaufman can still find the beauty and sentiment 

and justice which we have lost in the maelstrom we call 

life." — Detroit Times. 

"Brushes away the fog of crowds and peoples your path 

with living, breathing folks." — Omaha World-Herald. 

"Virile colorful essays of everyday life." 

— The Independent. 
"His searching sympathy will find your heart." 

— Binghamton Press. 
" 'The Little Brothers of Destruction* is a masterpiece." 

— Tampa Tribune. 
"Radiantly languaged pictures of real people." 

— Chicago Examiner. 

"It is just this plain homely touch that by its appeal to 

all classes of people has made the writer nationally popular." 

— Kansas City Star. 

"When you have read this book a surprising wonder creeps 

into your heart how it was possible for the writer to have 

understood you — just you — so well." — Louisville Herald. 

"A heart that appears to be about as big as the world 

is behind these pictures." — Washington Star 

"You cannot forget his way of telling you, and at the end 

of the book the foggy crowd has changed to living souls." 

— Christian Work. 
"Vignettes of the other half drawn with a most sympa- 
thetic pencil." — Providence Journal 
"Revelations of the people about us — who being so close 
are the hardest to see." — Brooklyn Eagle. 
"A book filled with the love of mankind." 

— Pittsburgh Dispatch. 

Decorated Boards. 12mo. Net 75 Cents. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 

29 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

What the Editors Say About DO SOME- 
THING! BE SOMETHING! 

<<TT is a book to be placed in the hands of every young 

■*■ man at the outset of his career, for it preaches a 
gospel of energy, common-sense, and resolute self-confidence 
with a vigor and fiery optimism that are in themselves 
heartening and inspiring." — The Bookman, London. 

"A clarion call to all who sit idly waiting, Mr. Kaufman 
has already gained a reputation as the exponent of the 
doctrine of efficiency. His philosophy of life has no place 
for the weakling or for the one who meekly submits to his 
handicaps. To him the battle is to the strong — the strong 
of spirit 'who overcometh.' His terse epigrams, his virile 
thrusts, must act as a tonic upon those who are wavering 
or slothful." — Boston Evening Transcript. 

"This little book belongs to a class that is sometimes 
called, in the secular sense, inspirational. One of the most 
obvious facts of human nature is that most men have 
powers that are never exploited and even at their best they 
are never doing their best. 'Do Something ! Be Something !' 
is their book. It is a preachment on human efficiency." — 
Western Theological Seminary Bulletin. 

" 'Dream to the stars — fling your dares a thousand miles.' 
So writes Herbert Kaufman in 'Do Something! Be Some- 
thing !' a collection of spirited essays that are optimistic 
to a degree and calculated to put backbone into the most 
timorous individual. Mr. Kaufman writes up to the hour 
— the hour now striking — and none of his books contain 
better work than this. His philosophy of human efficiency, 
if not wholly new in spirit, is new in presentation and that 
presentation is good." — Baltimore Sun. 

"A witch's broom for sweeping the cobwebs out of the 
sky." — May Harbin in The Athens Banner. 

Decorated Boards. 12mo. Net 75 Cents. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 

30 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 

The Reception by the Press to THE 
EFFICIENT AGE 

i i A STIRRING appeal to man to make each day count, 
***• to disregard the smaller for the greater things in 
life and above all to do something is contained in 'The 
Efficient Age' by Herbert Kaufman. The ideas of the au- 
thor have been called inspired common-sense ideas which, 
if the purposes of the reader are high, heightens them, if 
they are slack spurs them forward. Mr. Kaufman shows 
men how to struggle and attain. He has no patience with 
the man who does not want to be stronger, better or 
richer." — Cincinnati Times-Star. 

" 'The Efficient Age' is a book of preachments that are 
inspiring alike for the successful and the unsuccessful. Mr. 
Kaufman is dynamic and eloquent, and he makes every 
phrase and sentence count with telling force." — Evening 
Wisconsin. 

"Mr. Kaufman is one of the most widely read writers in 
America today and his words have been an inspiration and 
a help to thousands. He is the prophet of an invincible 
common-sense optimism." — Philadelphia Inquirer. 

"With a fund of good common-sense and a remarkable 
skill in dynamic English, he sends home barbed truths in 
a way that makes them stick." — The Duluth Herald. 

"Read this book. It will do your soul good." — Portland 
Evening Telegram. 

"From cover to cover this 'guide book to self-mastery 
and success* sparkles with epigrams and gems of good 
common sense." — The Pittsburgh Chronicle Telegraph. 

Decorated Boards. 12mo. Net 75 Cents. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 

31 



HERBERT KAUFMAN 



Critical Comment Upon POEMS 

<<TT has been considered difficult to be a poet and a social 
*■ reformer at the same time, but the author of 'Poems' 
flings down the gage of warfare against social injustice in 
a brilliant volume of verse that possesses the essentials of 
true poesy." — Review of Reviews. 

"Herbert Kaufman is a poet of today. He does not sing 
of bosky dells, babbling brooks or fragrant bowers, but 
attacks the follies, frailties and sins of the age in no un- 
certain language. Indeed, the blows may be likened to 
those of a sledgehammer wielded by the brawny arm of 
the smith." — The News Scimitar. 

"The poems included in it cover a wide range of sub- 
jects, tones and methods; but vigor, beauty, militant, force- 
fulness, brilliance and sympathy prevail throughout. There 
are songs of love, of passion, of sin, of democracy, of hu- 
manity — a mighty gamut swept by a powerful pen. When 
he touches on problems of human uphappiness, especially 
those of social injustice, he writes with a sword. The poems 
ring true and they strike deep." — The Duluth Herald. 

Decorated Boards. 12rao. Net $1.25. 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 



Greetings to THE CLOCK THAT HAD 
NO HANDS 

<<rpHE Clock That Had No Hands' derives its name from 
■*■ the fact that newspaper advertising is to business 
what hands are to a clock. We have read it completely and 
at one swoop. It is clear, logical and suggestive." — 
Christian Year. 

"Every page is overbrimming with useful suggestions 
on the subject of psychology of business." — Business News. 
Decorated Boards. 12mo. Net $1.25 
New York: George H. Doran Company. 

32 



T JE is for honesty, beauty, fearless- 
A. JL ness, love of humanity, courage, 
and, above all, optimism. He stands sen- 
sitive to every cry from a great, un- 
wieldy, melting pot of a nation. As a 
figure, a personality, a force, he has no 
living rival. 

— COSMO HAMILTON 

in the LONDON ACADEMY 



/'F there is one man in this whole world 
who knows the value of efficiency and 
twentieth century methods as applied to 
business, it is this man. 

— GEORGE W. PERKINS 



rTIHE good Herbert Kaufman is do- 
A ing cannot be estimated. Like the 
brook, it will roll on forever. 

— JOHN H. PATTERSON, 

NATIONAL CASH REGISTER 



TheB 




NEIGHBOURS 



Gets inside the hearts of the Ordinary People in 
street or store or train and makes them mean some- 

12mo. Net 15 cents 



DO SOME 



BE SOMETHING! 



A book that rouses the rut-dwellers and sends 
them into the fight for better work and a better 
world. 12mo. Net 15 cents 



THE EFFICIENT AGE 



A guide-book fo self-mastery and success, 
ompels you' to confess your purpose in life 
aake it better. 12mo. Net 15 ( 



THE CLOCK THAT HAD NO HANDS 



Twenty essays ab 
and principles. 



advertising, its necessity 
12mo. Net $1.25 



POEMS 



strife, manhood, social wrongs, in poems virile 

12mo. Net $1.25 



GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY, Publishers 
38 WEST 32nd STREET NEW YORK 



